Today is Earth Day, and the company whose self-proclaimed motto is “Don’t be evil!” has done something at least inadequate today. Google stopped providing “eco search engine” Ecocho.com with their search technology, apparently claiming that the company violates AdSense terms and conditions.

As you can read in my previous post, Ecocho funds trees to be grown in Australia to offset carbon emissions and do some good to the atmosphere. Google breathe the same air as all of us, so switching off a service that helps saving that air on the grounds of contractual reasons is insensitive, to say the least.

According to the team at Ecocho, Google’s move came as a total surprise and they have been unable to reach people at Google to settle the issue so far. Yahoo! continues to provide their search to Ecocho, so users can still do their bit to help the climtae. Oh, and of course other bloggers and Twitterati have started talking about it already and the tendency is not in favour of Google! So watch this space.

Update: Ecocho has published an official statement here.

[Disclaimer: Ecocho.com is my client at Hotwire. However, the above is my personal view on the issue.]